Burning Memories
by vincehighwind
Summary: Osmosis Jones feels depressed about Thrax's death, though he has no idea why. But, when an old high school friend comes across the virus, alive but not-so-well, he starts to think even more about WHY he had been so depressed in the first place. Yaoi, OC
1. Ozzie's Depression

He really had no idea why, but ever since Thrax had been destroyed, Ozzie just found himself extremely depressed. Other cells would probably yell incredulously at him if he were to say anything about it, after all he had the perfect life, right?

Pfft, yeah right! You see, after Thrax had died every thing in Ozzie's life looked like it was going to improve big time, but the thing is, some things had happened. Bad things.

Even though it had seemed like he and Leah were to start a perfect relationship with each other, it didn't turn out that way. Their couple hood had turned slightly messy; Ozzie found himself, for some reason, un-attracted to her feminine form and also way too preoccupied with his own thoughts.

But, at least, their breakup hadn't been all that messy as well. Leah had confronted Ozzie about his actions and he had admitted he was being an asshole to her, so they both decided it best to not continue being in this kind of relationship anymore. They did, however, agree it was perfectly all right if they were still friends.

Ozzie's case at work too wasn't as great as it had seemed. He was now at a higher position in the police department, but his depression would get to him at times and he would end up getting into some real danger. Fortunately, he managed to not get himself killed because of his partner, Drix, either pulling or pushing him out of danger's way.

Yes, at least there had been one good thing that had happened after Thrax's death, as far as Ozzie's life was concerned. The white blood cell had managed to make it so that Drix didn't have to leave the body of Frank and continue being his partner in crime prevention.

But, like as said earlier, Osmosis Jones found him self extremely and utterly depressed. He really had no idea why, but he had neither the time nor the will to figure out what exactly it was that was bothering him.

All he knew though was that it had all started when Thrax had died. To be totally honest with you, he would find himself looking at something and would sadly be reminded of the deceased virus. But then, he would notice this and shake his head violently, as if by doing this action he would forget Thrax completely.

Nobody else knew about it and he rather keep it that way. If anyone knew how he actually missed the deadly virus, people would probably send him off to a mental institution, located somewhere deep in the brain, far away from the rest of the cell population.

So, by doing this, Ozzie found himself going further into depression, suffering and mourning Thrax's death all alone.

* * *

"Jones, I have another assignment for you!"

The chief of the "Frank Police Department" yelled out, his voice carrying over to Ozzie and Drix's office, which wasn't too far off. However, Osmosis didn't hear him, he was too busy staring down at all the, **still** unfinished, paperwork all over his desk; too deep in thought to register anything.

Drix, however, did hear the call. "Ozzie, the chief is calling us. Ozzie did you hear-?" The cold pill, that was starting to make his way out the door, only then to notice his partner wasn't following him.

Turning about, he then looked at the white blood cell that was still sitting quietly at his desk, unmoving. "Ozzie?" Making his way over, Drix reached out an arm towards the smaller male, feeling quite concerned for the other's sake.

When his hand connected with the other's shoulder, Ozzie jumped a bit, letting out a yelp of surprise, his reaction resembling one that had been startled awake from sleeping. The cold pill withdrew his arm quickly and there was a short moment of awkward silence, as the cell looked around, trying to figure out what was going on.

After a moment of this, Drix finally cleared his throat, getting Ozzie's attention. "The chief has just called us into his office. Are you all right, Oz? You've been different ever since that virus fiasco…"

Osmosis almost went within himself once again at the mention of Thrax, but managed to stay put in the real world, getting up from his chair to stand next to the cold pill. "You know me, Drips! I'm just fine. Don't you worry about me!"

The large cold pill looked at the smaller cell as if he wasn't too sure on whether or not to believe this form of comfort or not, but followed the now marching cell, out of their office.

"Yeah, chiefy-weefy, what's up?" Ozzie cried out once inside of his boss's office, taking a chair and twirling it around so as to sit into it with the furniture facing backwards, his legs splayed out because of it.

The chief looked irritated by the nickname that the younger male still had a terrible habit of calling him, but decided to not mention it and went down straight to business. "Alright, Jones, you and your partner are being assigned to take down a small-time perp."

At this, Osmosis seemed as if he was going to make some sort of objection, but his partner interrupted him before he could, hoping to stop any type of arguments by doing so, "So, exactly what type of life form is this, _'perp'_?"

"Nothing special, really. Just an ordinary Cold germ." At this, Ozzie looked even more insulted, but once more the cold pill interrupted anything he might of said, "We'll be right on it, sir. Just give us the location we need to be in and we'll deal with him."

"He's somewhere located near the eyes, we really have no idea why he's there; considering that he's a Cold germ, but that's where he's located."

Osmosis Jones looked as if he still had something to say about going after such an easy target, the back of his fist facing out and a finger jutted out, but Drix grabbed him by the back of the collar of his jacket and started to pull him out of the office with him.

"Oh, and Jones! Remember, if you make **another** screw up, I'm afraid I just might have to demote you back to where you were before!"

* * *

Jones knew exactly what the chief had been talking about as they were leaving his office. It was obvious that he didn't have his mind on things like he needed to when it came to having such a dangerous job, but depression just was not a simple thing to get over.

Thrax's death kept playing over and over in his mind and he found himself wishing that he had grabbed the virus's hand and yanked him out of the false eyelash, instead of just jumping over by himself.

He knew that this was a stupid thing to wish, the virus had almost killed Frank after all, but still; he just wished he could have saved him. The image of watching him melt away in the medical alcohol was something he saw in his nightmares almost as much as he did when he was awake.

"Oz, look out!"

Ozzie heard his partner yell out a warning to him, but still was unable to react quickly enough and felt a sharp pain suddenly shoot down his arm. He cried out and brought his hand up to where he had been hurt, pulling it back to see there was indeed clear mucus coming from the wound; the equivalent of blood to a human covered it.

Looking up almost dumbly, the male cell saw that their target had just pulled a gun on him and had, obviously, shot him. Ozzie was almost shocked by this, it was usually in a Cold's nature to run away rather than take the offensive in any way.

Painfully, Osmosis started to aim his gun, but was once again too slow because then a strange type of net made its way past him and hit the perp, wrapping around him and preventing any further movement on getting away. Lowering his head and gun in disappointment, the cell heard his partner come up from behind him, "Are you alright, Ozzie?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine! Just peachy!"

It was then that more police cars came in, getting a signal from a chip that had been programmed into the cold pill's gun arm, and immediately went over to the germ to take it back to their department.

"Look, Ozzie…I know you're mad about not being able to take down the perp, but we both know that you wouldn't have been able to shoot at him with your shooting arm like that." The large cold pill gestured towards the cell's arm that still had mucus coming out.

Osmosis Jones didn't say a word, unwillingly and silently agreeing with his partner. The cold pill looked his arm over and then shook his head, straightening himself up from his crouched over position from examining the wound.

"It looks like something I am unable to fix. We need to get you to a hospital." Ozzie looked like he didn't want this and seemed to have something to say about it too, but then another wave of pain ran through his arm and made him decide that maybe he should go to one.


	2. Meeting Roxanne

"Woah, this is one fancy hospital!" Jones cried out when they made there way towards the front desk of said hospital. Osmosis had been to many hospitals in his line of work, as well as before he had the job, but they all hadn't been quite as spectacular as this one.

Being one who normally was near a hospital in a more run down area in the city of Frank when going after a perp and also how poor he had been before he joined the force, all the hospitals he had been to before were just too sad to even describe.

"Name please." The woman behind the front desk said in a bored fashion, popping some chewing gum afterward as she continued reading her magazine, not once looking up at the two in front of her.

"Ma'am, my friend here needs almost-immediate help, you see. No, make that immediate help. He is losing mucus, after all."

Hearing this, the woman behind the desk started to slowly lower her magazine, looking quite bored, but then her eyes widened a bit when she saw that what the cold pill was saying was actually true.

"Oh, certainly," she said in a now flustered and somewhat panicky tone of voice, "I'll get you two in right away, sir."

She then pressed a button to what looked like a speaker and leaned in to talk to it, "There's a gentleman here that looks like he has a," the woman then looked over at Osmosis's arm and looked like she was about to puke for a minute, "bullet wound in his arm."

In no more than several seconds, a male nurse came out and led the large cold pill and the wounded cell, to a room to wait for a doctor. Ozzie went over and sat on top of the strange, small bed that all of these kinds of rooms were equipped with, the paper laid on top of it ripping a bit as he did so.

Shaking his head at this, Drix stood next to the door with his arms folded, or at least, as best as he could with his gun arm. It was then that the doctor came in and Osmosis let out a yell of surprise, not quite sure if he should believe his eyes.

There stood a she-cell, a paler blue compared to Ozzie, the top of her "hair" off to one side; if she had ears, it most likely would be tucked behind one of them. She also had half-moon glasses, a white lab coat that she kept open and a clipboard in her hand.

The name tag on her shirt said- "Roxanne, is that really you?"

"Oh, my Frank! Ozzie!" The she-cell replied to Osmosis's question, just as loud in volume. The he-cell stood and reached out his arms, ignoring the pain that shot up through his wounded one, and hugged the smaller she-cell.

Drix looked on with a stupefied look on his face, the two cells finally looking over at him. "Yo, Drips! This here is Roxanne, she and I went to high school together back in the day."

The cold pill didn't respond, the look on his face not relenting. Ozzie lifted an eyebrow at this, but then continued, ignoring his partner's strange behavior. "Anyways, she and I were like brother and sister. We lived in the same neighborhood, right next to each other, even!"

Turning back to Roxanne, a large smile on his face, he asked, "So, you managed to get yourself a job as a doctor, huh? You were always so serious about becoming one! Study, study, study."

Laughing a bit, the she-cell then took notice of the he-cell's wounded arm and gasped, "Oh, Ozzie your arm! I totally forgot about why I was down here!"

"Huh?" Glancing down at the arm, which still had mucus coming out of it, Ozzie shrugged his shoulders a bit and made a sound of being nonchalant.

"Now, you just sit down and hold out your arm. I need to get some stitches in there."

Osmosis made a face of reluctance and disgust at the idea of a needle going into him, but did as he was told and sat back down on the bed, holding out his arm.

"I'm surprised that you haven't passed out by now! You always were a medical miracle, really." Ozzie chuckled to himself proudly at this so-called "compliment". "Hey, remember that one time I took on all those son-of-a-botulism that were bullying you?"

The he-cell asked excitedly, almost swinging the arm that was being worked on. "Yes, I was so scared when they started beating on you, I thought they were going to kill you!"

"Hehehe, yeah…Good times,eh?"

Roxanne made a face showing she was not amused, but then stood up from the spiny-office chair she had sat in to work on the other cell, taking off her medical gloves.

"OK, you're all done! You're all ready to go out and get beat on by all those germs, once again."

Ozzie made a face, but then got up and examined his arm. Unlike stitches for humans, the stitches for a cell didn't leave any kind of string behind and one was unable to tell if there had been a wound there in the first place, so there was nothing for him to see.

"Hey Rox, before you go, is it alright if I get your number or something? It's been far too long since we seen each other and I-"

"I live in a apartment not too far from here."

Osmosis's eyes widened a bit at such a quick answer, but then he smiled as he backed out of the room, grabbing the large arm of his still silent partner.

"Alright, thanks! I'll be seeing ya around soon then, alright!"

Roxanne smiled, watching the funny pair go out and walk through the hallway, making their exit.

* * *

"You have a safe trip home, alright Roxanne!"

"I will!"

The female doctor waved to her fellow employee and then turned and started her trek back home.

One of the places that she found herself having to walk by, but never enjoying it and wishing she could somehow go around it, was a dead end alleyway.

There was often some kind of hobo whom would cat call at her or ask her "if she wanted to have a good time, if you know what I'm saying".

But this time, there wasn't one. However, there was a pained groan that made her literally jump in fright. Instead of running away like most cells would've in this kind of situation though, she stopped walking and tried to see if she could find the source of the sound.

There was another painful sound, this time it was worse, if that was even possible. So, with her doctor's instincts coming into play she, for the first time, walked to the back of the alleyway.

It was very dark as well as dank, but this didn't stop her. She did stop, however, when she saw a faint glow. At first, she couldn't figure out where the light was coming from, but then noticed that it was coming from a claw of some sort.

The claw was broken though and looked extremely painful for whoever or **whatever** it belonged to. Trying to use this little light that she had, the she-cell trailed her eyes up the arm the hand with this claw was attached to, only to gasp when she saw who it was.

"Hey, baby…."


End file.
